The Wayback Machine

What’s the point of this entry you may be asking yourself?For those unfortunates who heard my keynote at AGDC a few years ago I spent a fair amount of time talking about some of the true pioneers in the online industry.Now that I have this little soapbox (which today may feel more like a soapdish), I thought I’d continue that train of thought.So, the Wayback Machine will be a way for me (and others I hope at some point) to share stories, anecdotes, etc. about things that happened in the early, primitive days of online games, ya’ know like a year or two before WoW came out?!?While some of the information that will be in these features may be already known and/or recorded elsewhere I’m hoping that these stories will help bring the information to a wider audience as well as fill in some other, personal details.The fact that the subject of this piece only generates a couple of hundred hits in Google is ridiculous.

So, tonight’s short story will be about GEnie and its founder/creator Bill Louden. Its history is encapsulated very nicely on the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEnie) but that history leaves out a lot of details and really doesn’t quite do justice to GEnie and the people who helped bring it about.So, for tonight’s tale I’ll write a little bit about Bill and the debt that every developer of online games owes to him and GEnie.I expect I’ll continue to expand this piece over time but I’ve got to try to cut down on my tendency to build AMAZING WALLS OF TEXT.

GEnie wasn’t the first online service but the fact that Bill could convince the suits at GE that they should turn over their precious computers and network so a bunch of people could interact with each other and play games online was a minor miracle in itself.At the time CompuServe (which Bill worked for previously) was the dominant player but online games were still seen as a very, very niche thing due mainly to the limited audience who could afford high hourly pricing and also put up with mostly text games.After GEnie was founded, a number of developers who would play key roles in the early days (and beyond) of online games came on board.Developers like Kesmai, Simutronics, NTN and A.U.S.I. (my company) would go on to create the games that helped pave the way for today’s online games.Bill, working with little support from GE other than the computers and the network, found a way to fund or help fund games that would help bring online games to the attention of a much wider audience (which admittedly was still pretty small).Kesmai’s Air Warrior was the first truly successful online flight simulator and Simutronic’s Gemstone went on to be one of the most successful commercial MUDs of all time.Simutronics is still running Gemstone IV and working on a MMORG and I wish Kesmai was still working on another version of Air Warrior (I loved that game).Together those two games proved you could do many things in an online game which hadn’t been done before (or done as well at least), including having great graphics, interesting long-term compelling gameplay and an ability to attract the interest of a fair number of people (especially at the cost of playing these games) in an era where online games were still very new, novel and considered the “geekiest thing in geekdom”.These games and others helped keep the idea of online games going at a time where almost nobody in the game’s industry cared one bit about online games and very few people, in the scheme of things, even knew that these games existed.Even getting coverage in computer game magazines was difficult and aside from a few supportive souls (Johnny Wilson leaps to mind), very few people cared about what was going on in the online world in the early days of GEnie.I believe that if Bill hadn’t created GEnie and gotten enough backing to get some great games online, that the online market wouldn’t be where it is today.It still would have happened but I really do believe it would have taken a lot longer than it did.

I won’t address GEnie’s forums (the Wiki does that quite well) but GEnie was a great service with people who really cared about it on both sides of the service.There wasn’t a lot of money made by GEnie or by the game developers even in the best of times but they were a great bunch of people led by a man who I believe played a pivotal role in the history of online games. Unfortunately, he is pretty much forgotten about except by those who were there or those people who really care about the history of this industry.So Bill, once again I say THANK YOU VERY MUCH!We all owe you one and in my case, if it hadn’t for those deals for Galaxy and then Dragon’s Gate, I doubt I’d be making online games today.

And thank you as well to the other people who made GEnie what it was, I really loved being part of it and getting to know the people behind it.While I don’t miss the days/nights I spent programming/debugging on that horrid OS, I do miss the fun we had and the excitement of breaking new ground on what was then the new electronic frontier.

LeMieux, LMAO. None taken. It was a complicated situation and I too wish that they were still making games. I can’t tell you how many hours I played AW (Gunsmoke was my handle). I loved that game with a passion.

RE: Nirotu – You said it. There are MUDs today that have combat systems and a level of detail that even the next-gen MMO’s can’t compete with. Pity that so many things translate poorly from a text-interface to a graphical one.

I am thankful for the most part that I missed the Genie era of AW. Hearing the old timers lament on $800 + phone bills was insane. I joined mid 95 ( right after they moved to AOL I believe ) and was addicted from the start. I remember the first squad I joined ( The Landscapers ) had a bombing mission test to be accepted. There is nothing like landing a B17 fully gunned dead stick with no gear and 6 crew members harassing you all the way down. After about a year the strategic bombing runs got a little old and I took up the p38. Ended up in 38 specials eventually with some very talented cyber pilots. Did you fly Euro or Pac and RR or FR? I’ve only seen a few games that grab you like AW did and keep that addiction for years. T4C, DAoC and War of course come to mind. I never got into LoK too much and honestly cant say I remember playing any of your games on Gamestorm as I was messing around with T4C at the time but you would be right up there with the others that helped build MMO’s into what they are today.

AW community is still alive and kicking with the die hards playing Aces High. Drop by the forums you would be suprised who you might run into there.

Simutronics is still trying to do Hero’s Journey? I have never been convinced of their ability to pull off a main line MMO. They had some alpha footage a few years ago that looked interesting, but I would never put much faith into those kinds of marketing shorts. Hope they do get the game out though.

As good as GSIII was (and I played when we paid our ISP’s by the hour…/shudder), Simu never seemed to be able to open themselves up to the opinions of outsiders. Very insular group, and I think the better MMO developers listen/respond to the market, not try to create a dream game and let it find a market.

In fact, that be nice to hear your take on the intersection of game design ideas and practicality for a major MMO. I know there are plenty of armchair game designers who come up with great ideas about game design, but little if any effort is put into evaluating the how such ideas would be put into practice and even less about the costs of doing so.

One great thing about muds, was that you could download dikuMud software (still can I’m sure) and make your own MUD that could run on a pc as the server. I spent 2 years creating my own dikuMud and it only made me appreciate the complexity of a real MMO that much more. Later, I tried realmcrafter and learned that without a serious and talented team, you can’t even pull off a little game that has any appeal.

Good post, I still to this day still renew my subscription to gemstone IV to explore their world a few months at a time. It really is a great story, with incredible lore, and in-depth roleplay back by an amazing mechanical system that’s complex and immersive at the same time. How I wish Hero’s Journey would actually see the light of the day, but from what I recall they were focusing more on the engine they had created for it and advertising that to other developers to use as it provided incredibly powerful on-the-fly GM interaction with the world.

I remember Genie fondly. I also remember Delphi which was another great service. Compuserv was so expensive. In retrospect has it really been that long ago? Nice blog entry! A good read. I look forward to your look back in your next entry of this kind.